The Angel in the Wastes
by Veriseple
Summary: The story of a woman who walked the waste and towered over giants. View her legacy through the entries of her journal as read by Goodneighbor's favorite Ghoul Mayor. (This fanfic will eventually go to very dark places and will eventually feature such elements as murder, rape, slavery, cannibalism, plus other general vile and despicable acts. The M Rating is not for show.)
1. Prologue: The Bitch's End

It was a cold day on the waterfront. The wind coming in from the north brought the cold down from New England and Canada beyond it. On one of the half ruined docks Hancock the ghoul, Mayor of Goodneighbor was slowly waking up after a week long bender involving enough drugs to satisfy all the rest of Goodneighbor in his place. Sitting up he raised up the near empty bottle of whiskey still clutched in his hand and drained it of his last drops with a happy sigh.

"Now that's a weekend for you."

Opening his eyes finally to see the seagulls above before sitting up and looking around to see that the docks and the water beyond him.

"Damn. I must have used more than I planned. Still worth it though."

He said ending the muttered words to himself with a smile as he raised a hand to his ghoulified face and rubbing at his face for a second before slowly making his way to his feet. He did find himself surprised that no one had tried robbing him yet. The docks were usually rife with scavengers. And Mayor of Goodneighbor or not usually at least one scavenger was willing to take the risk.

The more he thought about that thought the more he became confused. Particularly since he realized there was no sign of life anywhere. Not scavengers, fishermen, or even raiders were visible. He grit his teeth. Hancock had been living in the commonwealth long enough to know that if all the locals were out of sight it meant something big went down. The trick was to figure out what. Tossing his empty bottle to the side in the water he staggered forward back towards the city. In between the towering buildings it became clear that the absence of life extended beyond just the harbor. There wasn't a sound. Not even the roar of far off super mutants which made the ghoulified flesh of Hancock's spine tingle. Chem addict or not the ghoul had lived long enough to have a highly developed danger sense and his was going off like crazy. He pulled a revolver from beneath his signature red cloak that hid the holster. The chromed steel barrel shined in the morning light as he moved forward cautiously. He wasn't far from Goodneighbor and figured it was best he get back and talk to the drifters to get some answers. The town he was mayor to was just one more block west and two blocks north. A short walk, one that hopefully would be free of trouble. But instinct told him to head to Faneuil Hall he wasn't sure why. But he knew fully well to follow his instincts. They'd kept him alive this long. They'd keep him alive longer still.

Making the route change from Goodneighbor to Faneuil was easy enough. He kept going quiet and easy which was good because there was still no sign of any living thing, or not living thing since there weren't any machines moving about either. The last time Hancock had felt the city this still was the night the Minutemen and their General, his old friend, had taken on the Institute and then the Brotherhood of Steel. The city had been silent as the war waged for Boston's future that night. And now it was just as silent and that sent a fresh shiver down Hancock's spine.

He finally reached a vantage point after several more minutes of creeping amidst the towering ruined buildings, that he could take at the square infront of Faneuil Hall, and what he saw stopped him cold in his tracks. The square had clearly been the sight of a massacre. But what chilled him to the bone was the bodies lying in the square. They were Operators. Members of one of the two gangs that came out of Nuka World to the west and terrorized the commonwealth. At the same time that Nathan and his Minutemen had been dealing with saving the city there was another person who'd set up shop out west and created a raider force the likes of which was unrivalled anywhere except for the Pitt. In the years since the Minutemen had been hard pressed to hold back the raiders that had attacked settlement after settlement. The unfortunate reality was that without the tech of the Brotherhood and the Institute in the aftermath the Minutemen had been pressed to the breaking point to deal with the raiders coming from the west. Their stronghold in Nuka-world was unassailable just as much as their beachhead and forward base at the monorail station. Hancock had been with Nathan on that day when the two of them plus Preston Garvey and some of the Minutemen's best soldiers, Nick Valentine, and Piper Wright had all tried attacking that base. Their attack had almost succeeded. They'd taken the station and were in the process of blowing up the monorail when they'd been ambushed, not by a train but by a second group that had made the hike over the mountains and had been lying in wait. The Minutemen standing guard outside were cut down to a man. Trapped within Hancock and the others had no choice but to surrender to the Bitch herself following a short negotiation between Nathan and the Bitch.

They'd been allowed to leave with their lives because the Bitch had known just how much influence each of them in that group. The General of the Minutemen, his second in command, a Reporter, and the Mayor of Goodneighbor, plus a Synth that would never die? As people capable of carrying back a story went it was a pretty damn good selection. So they'd left with tails between their legs. And ever since then Nuka World had raided where they wished as they wished. The Minutemen still fought them as they could but with the Raider's base and supplyline unassailable they'd been forced into a defensive fight ever since.

But now Hancock was looking at what had to be an easy thirty or forty dead Operators strewn about the square. That sight in and of itself was shocking given that there were no other bodies to indicate who had done the killing. But that wasn't what had Hancock paralyzed. It was the sight of the corpse that was hanging from the side of Faneuil Hall. Stripped naked a dead red haired woman had been crucified. She hung from where her hands had been nailed to a wooden cross, her feet both nailed in as well. She wasn't moving. She had to be dead. But Hancock couldn't help but stare.

It was the Bitch herself.

He slowly made his way forward transfixed by the sight. He no longer tried hiding his movements. He didn't even consider the thought. A woman more deadly The Man out of Time himself was hanging there dead. As he got close he was sure it was her. He'd only seen her the one time those years before but he was positive. She hadn't aged a day as far as he could tell. Stopping right before the building he stood their transfixed by the sight of the strung up woman. Her skin was perfect in its perfection. Pale from years of hiding her skin beneath armor from the harsh sun. But Hancock was surprised by the number of scars that marked her body. From a massive set across her belly that almost certainly came from a deathclaw to numerous scars that were clearly from knives and bullets. There were even some old burn scars. All of them were long healed. She hung there dead and after half an hour of just standing there looking at her scarred corpse he finally walked away a smile on the edge of his face. Reaching into his pocket he pulled out an inhaler loaded with Jet and took a hit. Today was going to be a damn good day!

* * *

Days later Hancock was walking the streets and noticed a number of scavengers selling their haul just inside the gates of Goodneighbor. Not surprisingly to a man they all had loot from the massacre from the weekend before in their wares. Hancock took a look through and ended up buying his share of chems like everyone else. He was about to leave when he noticed one of the traders had something unusual amidst their wares. A beat up leather book. Curious he walked over and picked it up opening it and turning it to the first page. It was a journal that had apparently belonged to one Serenity James. Hancock figured she had to have been one of the Operators. It was a weird thing to have on a hard bitten raider but there were far weirder things. He paid two caps for it and took it and his new drugs back to the State House to get high and have a read. Who knew what he might find within those pages. It might just be some ordinary diary, it might even not belong to one of the raiders for all he knew. But if he was lucky and it did then maybe just maybe it'd tell him a weakness that he could hand over to the Minutemen to deal with the Nuka World raiders once and for all.

Heading upstairs into the statehouse he lounged out on the couch took a mentat and a hit of jet, that perfect mix for reading. He was smarter and more relaxed. It made this stuff so much more fun. And opening it to the first entry he began to read.


	2. Entry 1: April, 2265

**_Hancock could feel the high hitting him as he read the first entry. The mix of drugs was such that it felt like he was doing more than just reading the words written on the paper. It felt like he could see the life of the woman laid out before him. His eyes quickly read the few words. But he saw so so much more through the drug induced haze in his mind. There was something about these words written on the pages of this journal. Somehow, and he wasn't sure how. He knew that what he was seeing the real thing. It made him laugh._**

 ** _"This is one wicked high. I should do this more often."_**

 ** _He said as the woman's life overtook him._**

 _April, 2265_  
 _I'm leaving home. Ash and Uncle Phillip were sad to see me go but its high time I leave. I can't live my life here on this god-forsaken spit of land. The rains rarely come, the Water Barons hoard the water and charge outrageous fees, the well is dry most months out of the year. We barely grew any crops last year, not near enough to make ends meet. Ash enlisted with the NCR and sent her pay home to help but even that isn't enough. Two more years of this, maybe three and this farm won't exist anymore. I don't intend to disappear along with it. Time to see where I should be. Uncle Phil gave me his hunting rifle before I left, saying as bad as the raiders around home were, they'd be ten times worse wherever I traveled. I hope he's wrong but I doubt it. Now which way to go..._

The day was cloudless as the sun neared its peak approaching noon. A pair of crows flew across the sky but apart from that nothing else filled the vast empty sky. Not a cloud of any size could be seen. As the birds flew across the sky they made their way over the harsh earth below. The year was 2263 and colors that could be defined as belonging to anything other than dirt and rocks were few and far. There were some spots though where a speck of washed out green struggled to endure and even more rarely the sky would shine back blue reflected in the water that was so illusive to find. The birds flew over what many centuries before had been known as the land of California. That word had disappeared for many years the day the bombs fell in 2077. But from the ashes of nuclear war humanity had emerged in various twisted and mutated forms. Some of these still seemed human, others such supermutants or ghouls were a far cry removed from the humans they had all once been years and decades and for some centuries before. These three groups rarely lived in peace. Humans lived with humans, ghouls with ghouls, and supermutants with supermutants. Such was the way of things.

As for the humans that survived in the aftermath of the war their ancestors had climbed out of pre-war vaults or had lived in areas so remote that they had been safe from the radiation and nuclear winter that had followed the mass atomic detonation. It was close to two centuries now and the land that was once America had never fully recovered. Factions mighty and tiny alike had risen and fallen time and time again in the span of those years. Some attempted to form legitimate governments. Others respected no rule of law except for the law of violence. In the last century though on the west coast one faction had managed to claw its way above the others and outlast a great many lesser groups.

The New California Republic.

The New California Republic or the NCR as it was known by all was a government modeled after the old world government that had come before. With land stretching all the way down the coast into Mexico and frontier towns reaching as far as the Canadian border the NCR was one of the largest nations to have emerged in the post war wastes. But just because it had size and population that stood head and shoulders above all other would be nations did not make it a pleasant place to live for all. A large nation had large needs. Taxes were imposed and a land already hard was made all the harder for it.

The crows cawed as they made their way across the horizon heading north. The sound a sharp disturbance out of the ordinary woke the seventeen year old human girl who far beneath them was sleeping in the admittedly uncomfortable position of sleeping while sitting with her back resting on a dead tree. Despite the relentless brutal sun the girl pulled off her hat with her left hand and looked up her right hand raising to block the sun from her view as she looked up at the pair of crows. Her lips automatically parted and her tongue licked slightly as she contemplated the thought of trying to shoot one for a meal but her hand didn't move to the rifle that had rested on her lap while she slept with her hands securely holding it. Finally she sighed and spoke to no one but herself.

"Not worth a wasted bullet."

She glanced up at the sky and groaned quietly to herself.

"Uncle Phillip is gonna tan my hide at this rate."

With a sigh she stood up and looked around to make sure no one and nothing was around before giving her pants a few whacks with her hand to beat some of the dirt free. Making herself marginally more presentable given how truly dirty with dirt she was she reached to her belt, an old military type that had a canteen in a pouch on it. Unsnapping the buttons she pulled the metal canteen from its place and carefully unscrewing the cap took a single mouthful of water as a drink before unscrewing the cap on just as carefully not wanting to damage the cork that was in the cap that kept the water from leaking out. Replacing it on her belt and refastening the clasps so she would not accidentally loose it her eyes drifted down to the varmint rifle in her hands.

Like most teenagers male and female alike, that grew up on a farm she knew how to use a gun. More importantly unlike prewar teenagers that had simply been raised to use the family shotgun or rifle the girl had her own. As firearms went it left a lot to be desired. A small .22 caliber bullet was what she used and at that size it was hard to call the thing a proper firearm given how little in the way of damage it could do. But the rifle even as beat up and jury rigged as it was, and it was given parts from several different rifles had been used in the construction of it, had an unmistakable look of care. The metal was free of rust, or pitting. A feat of no small proportions given how frequently it was handled and how lethal the oil of a person's hands could be to the metal of a gun. The wood was equally cared for despite its aged and cracked appearance that would inspire confidence in none that looked upon it. But it was well maintained. As she opened the bolt and confirmed she had a round in the chamber it slid with ease unlike other superior in caliber but inferior in maintenance,

Beyond the rifle in her hands the girl was dressed as one might expect in the post apocalyptic wastes. Despite the unrelenting heat of the sun she had little in the way of skin showing. A large cowboy hat rested on her head shielding her from the rays of the sun and keeping her face in the shade. Her hands reached up pinning the rifle to her side by holding it pinned between her arm and her torso so both hands could reach up and grab the straps to the goggles that were around her neck. These goggles were the second piece of attire she wore. They were the large kind like might be worn by an off road driver to protect his eyes from the sand and dirt beneath his wheels that any gust of wind could easily pick up and blind her

Following her body down there was a ratty old scarf tied around her neck resting lightly on the collar of her shirt. As for the rest of her attire she wore a long sleeve denim shirt that covered her arms all the way down to her wrists. The shirt was a tad small for her as if it had been originally for someone with a more slight build. And this was quite possible for as women even young ones went. She was rather well built. Not only in the curve of her body in all the womanly places but beneath her shirt the toned muscles of her body were there as well. These weren't the muscles of a body builder but the muscles of a farm girl who worked like any adult would doing all the same things regardless if it meant harvesting crops or dealing with animals, or defending the homestead. Her figure was further accentuated by how the straps of the backpack she wore pulled at her shirt. In that pack was all the things she would need for a day alone in the wastes. Water, food, ammunition, and a few tribal medicines for incase she somehow came to ill. The rest of the way down her she wore faded blue jeans that were almost impossible to tell they had ever been blue at all given how much dirt and dust clung to them. The only place the dirt was inconsistently on her was where a knife in a sheath was strapped to the outside of her right thigh. And last but not least on her feet were not the dainty shoes favored by prewar women but instead hard sturdy boots that could take the hardest of punishments and keep on walking day in and day out.

Affixing her goggles into place the girl started off heading south east. With the sun finally shinning down relentlessly on her, the mystery that was her hair was finally revealed. It was braided and hidden beneath her hat but the stray hairs were unmistakable with the color of her red mane on her head. Adjusting her hat the braid slipped free to fall behind her back where it stayed freely twisting about in the air behind her back until it settled into a steady and regular side to side motion in time with her walk.

Her rifle remained in her hands for a time but as it became clear that the imagined threat wouldn't appear it was moved to where she slung it over her right shoulder. She walked like that in silence alone for the better part of an hour before finally coming over the crest of a hill she looked down at four buildings built close together. Those four buildings and the fences that surrounded them were the closest form of civilization to the family farm as one could find it was still a half day's walk one way. With a sigh of relief that the settlement was still intact she continued over the crest of the hill and down the slope of the far side and on towards the settlement.

Six minutes later she was walking into the settlement. One building was a store, the other a tavern, and the other two were houses one for each of the owners of the businesses. It wasn't much but still even at nothing much it was enough that about once a month a caravan would pass through sooner or later. And today of all days proved the girl's lucky day as the typical brahmin used by a trader to haul goods were just coming into view from behind a building. The girl began to smile then suddenly without warning her smile turned into a look of shock even as her eyes remained hidden so she had a good idea what he might need was someone to help. She could just make out the familiar back of the old man trader that frequented the frontier settlement. He had his hands carefully raised into the air visibly even with his shoulders. Another step to her side and she could see why. In the shadow of the store there was a man wearing cobbled together metal armor with a bandanna covering is face holding a shotgun aimed at the trader while crouched beside him was a second robber rooting through the pockets of the hired guard that the trader had employed to protect his goods and his caravan such as it was.

The girl didn't scream or run or shout, instead she simply took a crouched position. She still hadn't been noticed by the robbers and the trader's back was to her, no one else was in sight. Unslinging the rifle from her shoulder she carefully took aim. Looking through the goggles from beneath her hat she carefully looked down the sight of her gun. She didn't have a scope. Only her uncle's hunting rifle had one, all the other guns in her family were much simpler and had less powerful ammunition than the deadly .308 ammunition used by that rifle. Her own .22 wasn't sufficient to get through the raider's metal armor covering his chest but that wasn't where she was aiming. A moment later she went very still no longer breathing. She remained that way for several seconds as she counted her heartbeats. When she was in the middle of her fourteenth heartbeat and she was perfectly still she pulled the trigger gently. Not a jerk but a gentle pull, just as her uncle had taught her.

The bullet hit its target perfectly hitting the bandit's left eye and driving deeper. The raider instinctively raised his freehand to his eye after blood exploded outwards in uncomprehending shock before he fell forward to the ground where he didn't move, the blood staining the dry dirt. The trader a veteran of the wastes didn't question the change in his fortunes and before the other bandit could react the trader's boot slammed into the bandit's face just as he looked up. The girl watched unsympathetically as the trader kept kicking and then stomping on the raider's head until the would be bandit was dead, his head a caved in mess. By this point the girl was halfway to the store building and both the trader and the owner of the shop were looking at her. The shopkeeper a man she had known for years had a bloody sling holding his left arm to his chest. The blood was fresh and the wound was likely caused by the two dead men lying on the ground. Trader and storekeeper both had a happy smile at the sight of the dead men. As she approached they both looked back to her. But they weren't the first to speak, rather the girl was.

"You alright Mr. Black? Mr. Cassidy?"

Both men gave a nod. Despite the storekeeper, Mr. Black having his arm in a sling he seemed rather chipper about it. If the girl looked close she'd notice his dilated pupils that would tell her he was chemed up to deal with the pain of a broken arm.

"I'm alright Serenity. But you've done a damn fine thing girl. Tell you what pick one thing you want from my store and its yours free."

The old trader quickly nodded as well.

"Same goes for me and of course you get first pick of these bastards. Anything they have you don't want I'll buy off of you."

The girl pulled the old goggles from her eyes and her smile was wide. Two free things? Granted they were in the middle of the ass end of nowhere. Even the best thing in Mr. Black's shop was hardly some great treasure. But she wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth, whatever exactly a horse was the girl didn't know but she wasn't about to question her fortune. She took her time looking through it all. Old Mr. Cassidy needed some time to unpack his wares and Mr. Black needed to tend to his shop a little but that was fine by her it gave her time to strip the raiders. She'd dig a shallow grave for the two later but for now it was time to trade. Not surprisingly the two ill fated bandits didn't have much on them. The shotgun wasn't even worth looking at given how rusted it was. Her uncle had served in the NCR army and she'd learned from a young age how to care for a gun. She could tell neither of the two men had ever so much as oiled their weapons. It wasn't worth much, just parts really but Mr. Black or Mr. Cassidy would surely give her an offer.

The same went for most of the rest. What little armor both men wore was too big for her slender feminine body even with the muscle she had from growing up on a frontier ranch. In the end all that she kept was the caps they had on them. One stimpack, a half empty box of mentats, a bottle of irradiated water, and some brahmin jerky. The rest she sold to the two traders for the some total of seventy four caps.

With that done now came the highlight of Serenity's day. She took her time looking over each and every item in both trader's inventories. Both were honest men, they didn't hide anything. Honesty and their lives was worth more than the loss of profit on any one item they had. In the end she got a 9mm pistol from Mr. Black who was nice enough to include an extra clip for the gun plus twenty bullets of 9mm caliber. From Mr. Cassidy's selection she chose a leather jacket that had been custom worked a bit. With tough brahmin hide worked into it it was hot to wear given it was black leather but it was better than just a shirt. It probably wouldn't stop a bullet though shotgun pellets at range might not get through, and a knife would depend on how sharp it was. All in all it was a good trade. The jacket even had a spot to holster her new pistol hidden on its inside. And best of all it was her size! She didn't know who made it but she was happy she'd found it. New jacket on with pistol and clips inside, with all the rest in her backpack and her rifle slung over her shoulder she waved goodbye to Mr. Cassidy shouting a goodbye to the old man.

"I hope you find your daughter!" She called out as he moved off into the distance. He'd told her the last time he'd come through and she'd been in town that the whole reason he was even back in the NCR was to find his long lost daughter but so far he'd had no luck.

Turning her attention back to Mr. Black who was taking a swig of whiskey to dull the pain of a broken arm she walked back into the familiar store. It was time to attend to the real reason she'd made the trek out this way. "Mr. Black, my Uncle sent me to pay you for last month's water."

She reached into her backpack and pulled out a bag of caps, not the ones from before, but a different one and set it down on the table. "He would have come himself but there was someone creeping around the property last night. Probably the two skags out back." She said using the wastelander slang to refer to the lowlifes out back lying dead.

Mr. Black wasn't a greedy man but he was a merchant through and through he took a look at the caps. "Alright but that ain't enough. And your uncle knows that. Lets just hope he can bring down a critter with a hide worth enough to make up the difference." Serenity nodded at the man before walking out the door. She spent an hour hauling the two bodies away from the small town and dug shallow graves in the dirt with her hands for the two bandits before covering them back up. She spit on both before covering them up to hide them from coyotes before making the long trek back home.

It was nightfall by the time she got back and the hours she walked gave her plenty of time to think. She had the jacket, she had the pistol now. Maybe it was finally time.

At long last the lone ranch house came into view. Light shinning from its windows. Not electric, but fire light and downwind of it all Serenity could smell the smoke. She adjusted the straps of her pack and kept on walking. Five more minutes of walking and she finally came to the ranch house that was her home. She could see movement inside, Uncle Phil most likely. But as she opened the door and stepped inside she received a pleasant surprise.

"I'm home."

She called announcing herself even as a smile crept onto her face. It wasn't her uncle sitting on the couch reading a book but rather her cousin Ashley. Her uncle's daughter and two years older than Serenity herself. Unlike Serenity's own red hair Ash had blond hair much like her father. Ash had taken after her dad, Serenity though she had the family name had inherited her hair from her mother. The nineteen year old looked up from her book and a grin hit her face as she stood up. She didn't say hello, that wasn't the James family way after all. Serenity barely had time to drop her backpack and rifle before Ash was grabbing her. Soon the two were wrestling with each other. For the first thirty seconds it wasn't clear who was doing better. That was until Serenity managed to tangle her older cousin's ankle with her leg and down the two went, Serenity landing on top her weight driving the air from Ash's lungs. Serenity didn't waste the opportunity and in the two seconds it took her cousin to regain her breath she had her in a headlock her legs squeezing Ash's body and her arm pinned.

It was at this time that the man of the house walked out of the kitchen.

"Alright that's enough you two. Get up and set the table. Supper's about done."

The two quickly untangled themselves but Serenity looked at her uncle curiously.

"You're just finishing now. What kept you busy?"

Her uncle gave her a look as he walked back inside the kitchen. "Ash and I spent the day dealing with the raiders that were trespassing last night."

This caused Serenity's eyebrows to shoot up in surprise. So those two skags at the town hadn't been the ones after all. She quickly helped her older cousin set the table and two minutes later her uncle brought out dinner. There was one piece for each of them of Brahmin meat. slow cooked with veggies and in a sauce. A pot roast. They ate in silence as was their habit. A salad of home grown greens finished out their meals and each had a mutfruit for desert. When Ash was carrying her dishes into the kitchen Serenity finally broke the silence.

"Uncle Phillip I'm gonna leave tomorrow morning."

The old man looked up in surprise. He had more than a few grey hairs in his thinning hair and in his somewhat unkempt beard. Serenity had been responsible for her share of that grey but he had cared for her for years and was both a little shocked at the sudden decision, and a little sad. He knew his niece enough to know she never did anything on a whim that might shift a day or week later. If she was saying she was leaving then that was it. He might go months or even years before he'd see her again if he'd even see her at all. The wastes were a hard place after all plenty of people died out there for any number of different reasons.

Ash meanwhile had moved into the doorway of the kitchen and was leaning against the door frame silently listening her eyes shifting between her cousin and her father. The nineteen year old had already left home herself. She was a private in the NCR army these days. Currently on leave to visit home she only had another day before she needed to head back south and return to duty. She said nothing though because like her father she knew the way her cousin's mind worked. Serenity had been raised right alongside Ash. She knew the wastes were a hard place. She was hardly some pampered brat that was the son of a Brahmin Baron who'd never known a days work in their life or had to search for safe drinking water or had to fight a raider for their very life. Serenity knew the harshness, and both father and daughter knew that it was time. Finally Phillip nodded.

"Well alright. We'll help you pack what you're taking."

And with that the three of them helped the seventeen year old girl pack up the things she would be taking. Like most girls of her age she didn't have a lot. Most of the important things she already had in her backpack just for a daily journey but they added a few extra things like spare clothes, a bar of soap, some tribal medicines they'd traded for. Stimpacks were miracles but miracles were never cheap. Often as not frontier families used tribal medicine for their medical needs and saved the stim packs they had for if someone was on death's door. And of course some food was packed for her too.

It wasn't yet dawn when Serenity said her goodbyes with her uncle and cousin. She wasn't crying though and neither were they. This was goodbye, maybe forever, all three of them knew that. But all of them were tough. There was a moment of surprise though when Phillip gave Serenity his prized hunting rifle. Serenity couldn't help but stare at the offered weapon her eyes tracing its barrel and scope. It was a powerful weapon, something capable of taking down even a Yao Guai. She wasn't about to refuse though but she did ask one question of her uncle even as her hands closed around the weapon taking it from him.

"Are you sure?"

Phillip nodded with a smile.

"I don't know if its fate or luck but one of those bastards we killed yesterday had a rifle too with a scope as well. Its in shit condition and it'll need some love and care but it'll do. But watch your ammunition you know how rare that stuff is. You got the five in the clip and that's it. Use it wisely."

Serenity gave a final nod as she slung the scoped hunting rifle on her other shoulder opposite from her .22 varmint rifle. She gave them both a final firm nod and turned around and started walking. She headed east until the sun was barely visible over the mountains to the east as dawn commenced. She looked north and south at the ancient pre-war highway that stretched out endlessly in both directions.

"Now which way?" She quietly muttered to herself.

 _ **His high finally came to an end and the image of the teenage girl on the edge of adulthood faded from the his mind. Hancock groaned stretching out where he lay on his couch.**_

 _ **"Damn what the hell was that shit."**_

 _ **He picked up the leather bound diary and looked at it for a long while before smiling slightly.**_

 _ **"I can't wait to do that again. With a high like that who knows what I'll see next."**_


	3. Entry 2: July, 2265

**_Hancock let out a shaky breath his hand shaking ever so slightly as he held the journal in his hand. Raising a hand he ran a finger over the words. What the hell had that been. A vision? A hallucination? He had been high. Heck he still was but he'd never had anything happen like that before and he'd been shooting up for so many years now you'd figure he'd have experienced this before now. This wasn't the first time he'd used mentats and jet together. So why was he seeing all this? What was different? But one thing was for sure. He wasn't about to stop. He loved the high, he loved the rush. And there hadn't ever been a rush like seeing another's life. He popped another mentat and took another hit of Jet and turned the page and began to read..._**

 _July, 2265_  
 _Was fiddling with a radio, heard this strange message over and over again inviting me to a place called the Sierra Madre. Asked around, heard how its some sort of treasure city. If I can find it and get that treasure... Message invites me to Begin Again. Damn straight. Never have to shovel brahmin shit again if I'm rich, time to get a whole new life. Sierra Madre here I come._

Serenity was the way she had been with the last vision. Her hair was a little longer, maybe half an inch, probably less. She was also dirtier but she looked much the same as she had before. Same leather jacket. Rifle on her left shoulder, .22 varmint rifle on her right. He could see the butt of the 9mm inside the jacket of Serenity's jacket. Her hat was the same, so were her goggles. Nothing had seemed to have changed. She was walking down a road. Heading south given that the sun was in the west maybe an hour from sunset. It was at that moment that Serenity slowed to a stop and looked to the west, instinctively adjusting the straps of her loaded pack on her back as she stood there. Seeing the sun coming down she turned around slowly eyes scanning the horizon. To the east there was the faint outline of a shack or some kind of building. Shifting the way the sling of her .22 rifle she moved off the road and began walking towards the shack.

The sun was just touching the horizon when she reached the shack. A quick look at the exterior would tell it had been abandoned for some time. There was a well around the back that when pumped produced dirty brown water but it was still water and though it looked and tasted nasty it was clean and rad free. Serenity took a drink and refilled her canteen on the dirty water before checking the inside of the shack. The shack was a single room. Whoever had lived here was probably long gun judging by the lack of any possessions. There was the metal frame of a bed without a mattress along one wall. A lantern hung from a hook on the wall but a quick check showed it was out of oil. Before she ran out of daylight Serenity quickly dropped her pack on the bed and opening it removed a small canister of fuel. Carefully she poured a small amount into the base of the cannister. She had a spare wick in her pack as well that went in place. Flint and steel produced a spark that lit the wick and she had light right as the sun finally disappeared beyond the horizon. Leaving her pack inside she took the lantern outside and did a quick walk around the shack checking for any signs of inhabitants or critters and found none. Taking another drink of water and taking a moment to take care of her natural needs in the bushes she retreated inside for the night.

She laid her sleeping mat on the metal frame of the bed and then her sleeping bag over that. Finally a thin blanket was laid out. Hot though southern California was the nights could get awfully cold. But it wasn't yet cold and it was too early to sleep. She ate a pear for a bit leaning against the shack wall her eyes on the radio in the corner. Crawling over to it made clear it wasn't working but she wasn't ready to sleep so she opened the case exterior and began fiddling with the interior wiring. Serenity had a knack for mechanicals and electronics like most wasteland scavengers and explorers. She wasn't capable of building a robot from scratch or anything but she could run a basic computer hack or repair basic items. After all scavenged prewar items were always more useful if they worked. So it was in her interest to fix the broken items she found. Inevitably over time she was slowly getting better and better with mechanicals. Radios were still new to her since they were too heavy to normally be found in random remote locations. Clearly someone had brought this one here but abandoned it when it had stopped working. After about half an hour of work and one accidental mild shock when she touched the wrong wire the radio came to life. Idly she began tuning her way through the radio channels. It would be nice if she could find some music.

What she first discovered though wasn't music. But a woman speaking.

"... from your troubles, or if you just need an opportunity to begin again, join us, let go, and leave the world behind at the Sierra Madre grand opening this October... We'll be waiting."

Serenity listened. Not sure what to make of the transmission. It seemed weird. Particularly when the transmission seemed to loop and start again. Sierra Madre? What was that?

"Has your life taken a turn? Do troubles beset you? Has fortune left you behind? If so, the Sierra Madre Casino, in all its glory, is inviting you to begin again. Come to a place where wealth, excitement and intrigue await around every corner. Stroll along the winding streets of our beautiful resort, make new friends, or rekindle old flames. Let your eyes take in the luxurious expanse of the open desert under clear star-lit skies. Gaze straight on into the sunset from our villa rooftops. Countless diversions await: Gamble in our casino, take in the theater, or stay in one of our exclusive executive suites that will shelter you and cater to your every whim. So if life's worries have weighed you down, if you need an escape from your troubles, or if you just need an opportunity to begin again, join us, let go, and leave the world behind at the Sierra Madre grand opening this October... We'll be waiting."

She listened through the entirety of the transmission in silence and listened once more as it began again. Sierra Madre. Where had she heard that name before. She sat in silence as the woman's voice repeated the invitation over and over and over again. When the loop was nearing its twentieth time Serenity's mind finally made the missing connection. There'd been a crazy old man two or three towns back who'd mentioned it. Saying it was a city of the dead that held a mysterious treasure. That meant that this wasn't a new post war casino like those found in New Reno. But something from before the bombs. It seemed odd that the transmission was still playing almost two hundred years later but perhaps that was providence. And treasure. Treasure certainly appealed to Serenity.

It was hard to say what form the treasure might take. Water? Weapons? Caps? Something else? As Serenity sat there lost in her thoughts as the transmission continued to loop over and over again she eliminated the water and the caps. Serenity was smart enough to know that caps and water were hardly valuable in the pre-war world. While weapons certainly might be found this was a civilian place by all accounts. So what was the treasure. Pre-war money? That wasn't nearly as valuable though it still had some valuable with merchants. It would be better if it was something else. But perhaps there were other things. A city of the dead, apparently unspoiled and preserved? There might be more there. There might be tech, weapons, chems, and water after all.

She smiled softly as she finally started to feel tired enough to sleep. Getting up she blew out the lantern to preserve the oil in it and made her way to the bed. She put her knife between the bedroll and bedframe while she held her 9mm, safety on, in her hand as she pulled her blanket over her body. As she closed her eyes the radio repeated the message for the hundredth time and the woman's voice repeating the same message that she'd sounded for decades and centuries lulled Serenity off to the land of sleep where dreams of the treasure awaited her.


	4. Entry 3: August, 2265: Day 1

Author's Note: The Sierra Madre Entries are one massive vision and apart from this initial portion from Hancock in reaction there will be no return to his perspective until this part of the journal entries are complete at which point there will be a break during which at least one and quite possibly more chapters will be devoted to his reaction and following actions.

* * *

 ** _Hancock didn't know what to make of that last vision or whatever it was. He was lying on a couch in his rooms in the Old State House in Goodneighbor. In his right hand was the journal, the right a half used canister of jet. A box of mentats was lying on the table next to him along with half a dozen other chems in easy arms reach. Outside of arms reach a LOT more chems and bottles of booze filled his room. The mayor of Goodneighbor was much the same as always and one of his favorite activities out of every day was getting high._**

* * *

But what was with this journal? He'd never had this sort of thing happen to him before and he'd been a chem user for decades now. And a heavy user too. So what was this stuff? Normally he wasn't one to be looking to kill a buzz but there was something off about all this. He viewed these visions or whatever they were from a third point of view. But at the same time he was aware of the girl's emotions or thoughts. It wasn't something he understood. And there was something that did send a tingle down his spine. The Sierra Madre.

Like all good treasure stories this one had been around for centuries just like the girl knew. The girl was from out west so that made sense. Stories about it were mostly just tall tales here on the east coast. Right along with there being a story about how a man discovered a vault inhabited with only Nine-Hundred and Ninety-nine women and only one man. A tall tale for sure. But this next entry... Suppressing a shiver as he scanned the words once with his eyes he popped a mentat and took a hit of jet once more and let the... whatever it was, overtake him.

 _August, 2265: Day 1_ _Followed the radio signals, was tricky having to find working radios and judging the strength to know if I was going in the right direction. This place is like nothing else in the wasteland that I've yet seen. This strange cloud fills the skies. I can barely tell if its even night or day its so thick. But I can breath it. Kind of. I don't dare stay in it for long if I can help it. I have nothing but the clothes on my back except for a knife I've found. I've been searching for any sign of treasure but found nothing but these casino chips around. I've experimented and found they fit into these curious vending machines. It's just as well these machines are scattered around given I haven't found all that much in the way of plants I can eat. No animals either, not so much as a cockroach, I have found whatever it is that inhabits this place. They wear these strange outfits and the one I first met attacked me. I stabbed my knife into its head and thought it dead but it was up and moving again within two minutes. I don't know how but the one blessing I've found is that it doesn't seem to be able to see very well out of that mask whatever it is. I was pretty quiet when it got back up and it just walked right by me. I'm going to have to be careful around these things from now on if they don't stay dead. The last two things of note are that I've found evidence of plenty of others. Corpses and messages. The messages are carved and painted on the walls, some scratched in using their own fingernails I'm pretty sure. I can only hope none of them got the treasure and got out or I'm going to be risking my life hear for nothing. Still I'm not entirely alone. There is this strange thing in the Villa courtyard below the Casino. A woman in the air. I don't know her name but the local that attacked me stayed far away from her, not sure why. Fear? Something else? No idea but she'll protect me in this place. I just wish I knew her name._ _The treasure will be mine._

The vision returned on time and Hancock was confronted with the sight of the girl zipping up some kind of dirty overalls of a pale white kind. They looked kind of like some sort of engineering outfit or construction outfit from the prewar. The strange thing thing though was that the girl didn't have ANY of her gear with her. That was odd. Why didn't she have it? What could possibly be the purpose of leaving it behind? All she seemed to have was the jumpsuit she was wearing, heck she hadn't even brought her own clothes! And a rusty cooking knife lying near her feet. She pulled the zipper all the way up and affixed the knife in her belt being unreasonably careful not to cut herself given how rusty the knife looked. Then she began walking forward.

All around her was what had to be the Sierra Madre. Up on a hill loomed an enormous building lit up by spot lights while all around her were pre-war buildings that had long since seen better days. There was no sounds to be heard but for the occasional clatter of a loose shutter that was slightly ajar on one building that would open slightly with a squeak of a rusty hinge before closing with a quiet clatter of wood on masonry only to repeat an irregular number of seconds of later whenever the next breath of a breeze would come through. That clattering was the first sound the girl heard and on instinct the knife came into her hand and her eyes found it. The girl's gaze homed in on the errant shutter even at that distance but this was the same girl that had hit a man's eye on her first shot three or four months before as well. It was unlikely her keen senses would abandon her in so short a time given her prime age.

The girl took a cautious step and then another into the courtyard her eyes taking it all in at first before fixating on a strange vision in the center of the courtyard. From the top of the fountain there was a... projection? It featured a beautiful woman that the washed out colors of the projection could not hide fully. The girl took a step to her left and then another watching as she viewed the side of the projection and realized it was not a simple two dimensional projection but completely three dimensional. On her fifth step to the left she heard something under foot. Lifting her foot carefully she looked down and found the gleaming gold roundness of... a poker chip? It was very strange. But then the whole place was strange. The chip was gold to the eye, and heavy to the touch. In beautiful writing the words 'Sierra Madre' were inscribed on the front.

The girl remained crouched for a time. Was this the treasure? One coin hardly seemed enough to warrant a treasure legend. Her eyes drifted up to the building on the hill. Was the treasure there? Or somewhere down here? Ahead were gates that led to a long roadway leading up to the building. The gates wouldn't open but the girl was slim enough to force her way through. She made her way up the path and all the while she got the peculiar feeling of being watched. She reached the hotel but neither door nor window would open to her. Defeated for the moment she returned to the villa below the casino. She may have been thwarted but she had not been stopped. She would have her treasure.

In the following three hours the girl carefully made her way through the city cautiously and quietly. True the girl was not as quiet as some but she was hardly a suit of power armor clomping through the streets either. Her movements were to the point and true she made excess noise here and there but at least she didn't go around walking as if the world was her candy store. Clearly she understood that there was danger in this place. Danger was made apparent in that time too. For while she didn't encounter anything living. She did encounter inanimate things that could harm her. Such as a bear trap in the shadows of a ruined dwelling. She also found the remains of others that came before her in this place, their skeletons rotting along with the possessions they had had. From the bodies she took their items for her own taking food and weapons alike as well as a construction worker's helmet.

By the time she did encounter the first living local as they could be described she had acquired a small supply of knives. Along with a pack loaded with a few items of precious water and food and ammo. So far she had yet to find a gun but she was patient. Still the strange green eyed human(?) caught her gaze the moment it was in her peripheral vision. The person was scuffling around down the street even as Serenity tried to draw a knife from her belt as quietly as she could. But clearly not quiet enough. The suited person froze then its head swiveled on her, its green lenses of its hood focused on her and then it was running at her. Caught off guard Serenity took a quick step back as she pulled the knife fully out and a curse escaped her lips.

"Shit!"

In that brief moment in time before the person reached her she toyed with throwing her knife at it but didn't. Even if she did hit, which was a big if she didn't know if that would be enough assuming she even hit, and she didn't have time to draw another knife before it reached her. It lunged straight at her and all she could think to do was bring her knife down in an overhand swing that drove straight into the person's skull. Rusted or not those knives were clearly very sharp. The green light faded but physics wouldn't stop and Serenity was knocked backwards to the ground by the creature. It didn't move though as she pulled herself out from underneath panting lightly at the shock.

"What the hell is this thing."

She couldn't resist muttering as she moved around to examine the creature having pulled her knife from its head. There strangely wasn't any blood on the rusted blade but the thing had to be dead. She didn't find anything in its pockets. She was just standing up and walking away when she heard a quiet 'click' behind her. Her body froze on instinct as her head slowly turned to look over her shoulders as she saw the thing's fingers twitching. Even survival instinct froze on her for a few perilous seconds as the thing started moving its fingers and then its arm. And then the head rotated and looked at her green lenses shining once more.

Serenity couldn't resist letting a terrified shriek and started running frantically through the streets. Not taking any turns she didn't know she headed for that building just off the square that had the still armed bear trap. It was only as she crossed through the square and burst into the build, narrowingly missing stepping on the same bear trap herself and huddled hidden in the darkness that she realized she couldn't hear the creature anymore. Creeping back to the still open doorway she carefully looked out and saw in the far distance that the thing was still visible agile as sin given how it was hopping back and forth its eyes... on the woman above the statue? She realized it wasn't coming closer either. It seemed to want to follow though as minutes past its frenzy subsided and it seemed to be looking for her but clearly couldn't see her at such distance, plus she was taking more care to remain unseen than she had before. When the creature finally disappeared she crept back out into the square and moved back over to where the thing had been. Silently she traced a line across the cobblestone that the creature had refused to cross. She glanced back at the woman above the statue curiously before glancing to her right and a strange machine.

She'd seen another farther into the villa while exploring but this was the first time she'd done a close inspection. Or rather to say that she did a thorough inspection. She noticed a slot that she hadn't seen on the other and a thought hit her prompting her to pull out the casino chip from before. Sliding it into the slot along with another she saw its count increase to two of the chips. She entered another and another and then another that she had scavenged before she blinked as the machine created a projection with a display above it showing names of items. Manipulating the controls on the surface of the machine she looked through each before finally selecting one that displayed the words.

She scrolled through each reading them all before finally selecting one that read 'Canned Goods' selecting it there was a vibration followed by a clunk from the machine's dispenser. Looking down she found a pre-war can waiting for her. Lifting it up she read a label that described the contents as being a mixture of meat and beans. She glanced quickly from machine to can and back before smiling slightly. This place had no animals or plants living in it except for those things and given what she had seen she was certain she didn't want to try eating them. But this. This could keep her alive. As long as she could continue to find chips.

She retreated back to the house with the bear trap, closing the door she carefully moved the beartrap to just inside the door where anyone coming in would step on it before taking another look around. She found another chip that she had missed on her first sweep but little else new. Making her way to a couch up on the second story she pulled all the shutters closed before opening her can and eating it with her fingers. There was no need to stand on ceremony and she didn't have a spoon or knife, using those rusty but very sharp knives was out of the questions so her fingers it was. When it was finished she positioned her pack where it would be a pillow of sorts on the couch and slid one knife under the cushion seat before settling in to sleep. She let out a single cough before drifting off to sleep.


	5. Entry 4: August, 2265: Day 4

_August, 2265 Day 4_

 _The Villa is a virtual deathtrap. I came in with almost nothing, getting here through the canyon I took I had to stash all my stuff. The Cloud has destroyed pretty much everything else. Luckily I'm not the first to come here and there's stuff left over from before the bombs fell. I've got an automatic rifle and some of the armor the security wore, but I prefer to use a cosmic knife here. The locals get drawn to sound, ran out of ammunition for my rifle in the first five minutes after I found it when they started coming back, only managed to get more when I found a code for these vending machines in the police station. The treasure had better damn well be worth it._

* * *

There was almost no difference between day and night in the Villa. The sky was perpetually covered with the cloud and equally dark all day round. No sign of the sun was ever seen. It would become easy to loose track of the days. There was no way to mark the passage of time for no time passed in the Villa. The cloud preserved everything as it was. Even time. This place was a place removed from all the world by the cloud. A hell that one could choose to visit. But still one few escaped. The skeletons were few and far between but Serenity had come to suspect that the locals, or Ghost People as those that had come before had named them, dragged mos remains back with them as the only corpses she found were hidden in hard to reach places such as up on roofs or other places that the quick but not particularly agile ghost people could not reach. Strangely they seemed in the cases of some to have been there for years but their bodies seemed to decay very slowly. Serenity's knowledge of medicine and science was limited at best but she did know of bacteria and had wondered if the cloud above the Sierra Madre killed even the bacteria that decomposed a body. That was not to say they did not slowly decompose but what should have taken days seemed to take months or years instead. Infact so much so that some corpses showed signs of what could only have been cannibalism. A thought that had made Serenity physically sick. But regardless she knew it was a way for the desperate to survive, and food and water were in the end only one of the things one needed to survive in the Villa. To survive the ghost people was to avoid them. And this meant to find places where one could sleep safely.

Serenity awoke for her fourth day in silence. Green eyes opened to the world looking up at the ceiling of the Villa house on the square that she was living in. Even though it was only her third sleep there she already knew the ceiling well just as she knew how the cracks of the tile of the house felt under bare feet. Her bed had changed slightly. Instead of simply the metal and wire frame of the bed now there was a dirty mattress on there with blankets that she had wrapped herself up in. Her body was naked as the blankets fell from her youthful body as she rose up, though she was not totally naked. Her left hand rose up and gently touched her side and she restrained a hiss of pain. Her fingers pulled away from where her they had touched not naked flesh but blood stained bandages wrapped around her waist. Still naked she reached beneath her bed and pulled up a doctor's bag and first aid kit that she had scavenged from the Clinic the previous morning. And a good thing she had too. Opening up the bag she pulled out a fresh roll of gauze that was only slightly used by a previous scavenger. Unwinding the bandage revealed a blood soaked bandage covering her side and after grabbing her belt and biting into the thick leather with her teeth, hard, she removed the bandage pulling away some dead flesh.

She whimpered from the pain tears in her eyes and biting furiously on the belt as she checked the visible wound. Even the lightest of brushes was painful to say the least and she was doing more than brushing the wound with her fingers as she checked it. The wound itself looked like it was a very nasty second degree burn, raw angry bloody flesh was oozing pus at her. With trembling fingers she grabbed a bottle of whiskey and first taking a swig from the bottle she swallowed the welcom burning sensation in her throat as it went down before biting back down on the belt and poured the alcohol over her wound. Her scream of pain was muffled by the leather belt thankfully though her eyes were squeezed shut tight for the moment a few tears from the pain having escaped to run down her face.

Her naked body twitched violently as she wrapped a fresh bandage over the entirety of the large burn on the left side of her torso her teeth clenched tight into the leather of the belt as she held it in place with one hand while her other wrapped the fresh roll of bandages around her torso to hold the bandage tight in place to her side. Once the bandages were fully in place she finally reached up with a shaking hand to pull the belt from her mouth. Teeth marks were marked deep into the thick leather from the force with which she had bitten down. Taking a deep breath and another swig of booze she began getting ready for the day ahead. First came a suit of armor that she'd gotten from the police station. Originally intentioned for the security forces in the Pre-War days it now protected her though there was a noticeably large hole on her left side where the burn was located. The fabric was blackened from the evidence of fire around the edges. She couldn't resist a hiss as she accidently poked herself there as she dressed. Still hole not withstanding it was armor, the kind that would protect her from the weapons of the Ghost People. There was a matching helmet as well but she didn't pull that on yet instead fastening her gun belt around her waist. The same leather she had been biting into had a holster for a Police Revolver. She eyed the huge rifle leaning against the wall for several long moments as she eyed the Browning Automatic Rifle but she knew just how many rounds of ammunition she had left for it. Better to just leave it given its heavy weight would only slow her down. She did though slip a pair of cosmic knives into the jury rigged sheaths she'd worked into her armor one on the outside of each arm where she could easily grab a handle and pull it free. The blade would cut the jury rigged sheaths to shreds instantly and be free and ready though she would need to work up another jury rigged adaptation afterwards. Finally pulling on her helmet she grabbed a cosmic knife from beneath the bed and scratched a tally mark into the wall marking a fourth tally before she stepped out of her home into the Villa beyond taking care to avoid stepping on the bear trap just inside the door and the three more outside as well.

She proceeded to systematically search through an area of the Villa for the rest of the day. It was slow work given how slowly she moved since remaining unnoticed by the Ghost People was far more important than being quick. So far as she had noticed there were no other living outsiders in the Villa. She had time. While she needed to get the treasure that was almost certainly in the casino up on the hill she had time. It was when the next outsider came that she would finally need to worry. So she spent all the day working through one abandoned room to another, never staying out in the streets of the villa for long. She scrounged for everything she could possibly find of value, from the precious chips that fueled the Villa's vending machines as well as food, meds, water, weapons, and ammunition, all the way down to innocuous items such as pre-war clothing. It was not that the item in and of itself had value, but rather that she would allow none others but her to have it. Everything here was a precious resource whether it seemed it or not. If she did not claim it then another might in her stead.

She was slow but diligent in her efforts as she pushed herself, still she knew when to take a break and so she took a few minutes around 'noon' as she gauged such things in the central square eating a cold can of beans for her meal. She was careful not to let the metal spoon scrape against the insides of the can too loudly lest it draw the locals. But between bites as she chewed on her food her eyes lingered on the ever present hologram of the woman in the center of the square. Even after the can was cleaned out with her fingers of every last bean she sat there her eyes fixed on the hologram with only the occasional blink to disturb the stillness that possessed her. At long last though a far off clatter, perhaps from a local knocking something over on the far side of the villa disturbed her from her solitude. Collecting herself up.

It was towards evening that her searching finally took her into the Villa Clinic. The ground floor was quickly scoured of useful items that were left hidden in a collected pile in the corner of a downstairs room out of sight of the eyes but near the door. She could hear the garbled fading music from a radio somewhere in the building as she crept upstairs and peaked to see a hologram much like the one in the square though this one was the form of a security guard dressed much like her. She swallowed visibly as she eyed it watching its patrol. Her eyes flicked to its source that strange machine responsible for the unholy guard and she eyed it in long silent thought before her gaze drifted down to a computer. Waiting until the guard was walking away she slipped forward and activated the computer. As quick as she could she sorted through the menus getting to the one that controlled the hologram and changed its program to patrol the ground floor. Then as she was not sure by which set of stairs it would descend down she slipped into a doctor's office to wait for it to pass by. Closing the door almost all the way plunged the room into near darkness though with that she noticed a blinking green light illuminating the room faintly coming from the computer. She taped a key and watched the request for a password coming up. Glancing at the door the hologram hadn't yet passed by so she very carefully and very quietly opened the drawers searching. In the bottom left drawer she found what she was looking for slipped into a clinical folder all by its lonesome self. A small piece of paper with at the top writen password, and at the bottom a string of letters and numbers. Typing in the password she began reading the doctor's reports. After two minutes she quietly whispered a word half in question to the silence of the building.

"Vera?"

By then the hologram had long since descended to the floor below and she searched the remaining rooms, in the process finding an Autodoc and after some experimentation she stepped into one and after some ten minutes emerged physically healthier and with the burn on her side a long faded scar that did not bother her in the slightest. She swept through the remaining rooms gathering what she could before using the same computer as before to program the hologram to proceed back upstairs. She went down the opposite stairs just as it came up safely avoiding it and reunited with her supplies that were swiftly whisked back to her home at the Villa Square.

It was near 'Night' that she finally stopped having checked over a few more buildings in the medical district before calling it quits for the day. In truth she hadn't gotten far, the thick pockets of Cloud made exploration difficult and hazardous as she well knew from the first time she had foolishly stepped into a Cloud pocket. She ate a dinner of Instamash cooked on a hotplate powered by a power cell to treat herself to her first hot meal since arriving. A bag of chips and small amount of vodka were the rest of her meal though she didn't eat more since she knew she needed to conserve her food. Still trusting that the Ghost People wouldn't come near she ate out at the fountain eating and drinking while she looked up at the hologram of Vera Keyes. Still she didn't stay out where she was visible for long and soon retreated to the safety of her home. Lingering in the doorway she looked back at the hologram and whispered.

"Goodnight..."

Then proceeding to her bed she began the ritual of stripping off her clothes and weapons for sleep. A rolled up blanket had been added that day now served as a pillow that she slipped her pistol underneath of. The rest of her armor was carefully laid out. She did take twenty or so minutes to try and work with some scavenged items to try and repair the hole in the side of her armor but didn't find anything that would work to her satisfaction. Finally giving up she laid down on the bed. The villa was as quiet as always and its silence kept her awake though not as long as the other nights. Slowly she was getting used to it. Fifteen minutes later her eyes finally closed for the night for good and she drifted off to sleep.


	6. Entry 5: September, 2265: Day 10

_September, 2265 Day 10_ _Still no luck on finding the treasure . I do have an idea about this place more. This whole place was a casino in the pre-war days Or at least it was supposed to be. I don't think it ever opened for business before the bombs fell. I'm learning how to survive here. I'm experimenting with the vapors of the gas that build on the walls and I think I can use this stuff. I've got a camp of sorts inside a building that's intact. With a stove, a computer, a bed, even running water believe it or not. I've bobby trapped the immediate vicinity with mines and jury rigged explosives to keep the locals away so far its working. I'm not leaving without my treasure but I don't intend to stupidly die because I didn't plan and prepare. So, order of the day is survival first, treasure second. Mornings I usually scrounge for chips and food plus ammo or anything useful, afternoons I search for stuff about the treasure where it is and how I can get to it. Odds are its up in the casino but you never know so I'll check this place thoroughly._

 _On a side note I finally figured out who my silent protector in the square is. Her name is, or was, Vera. I think she was a pre-war movie star or something. I don't know much about her but I'm always happy whenever I find out something new about her, helps to know a bit about my guardian angel. I found a few posters from a movie about her plus the casino and put them up in my little camp on the walls to remind me who's protecting me when I sleep._

* * *

The daily struggle for survival began as Serenity's eyes opened from her sleep. Her green eyes looked up at the ceiling above her as her nostrils flared slightly breathing in the unique smell of the air tainted by the Cloud. Sitting up on her bed the blanket slipped from her naked body mid movement revealing the toned muscle of her flesh. Her arms stretched up above her head as she stretched her stiff muscles for the day ahead. Another deep breath followed before she slipped to her feet on the cool tile of her home. She walked down the stairs and into her kitchen where she grabbed a spoon and one of her carefully hoarded supplies of prewar food, in this case a can of Cram. Removing the lid of the can which she sets aside to be reused later she scoops the pre-war meat onto a frying pan and starts a hot plate and spends a few minutes cooking her meal for the very valuable luxury of having a hot, if overall unappetizing, meal.

She eats shortly after the affair a no nonsense thing in which she eats at a quick steady pace that quickly sees her meal gone as she devours it with regular full bites until it is gone. The now empty can of Cram joins the lid in a collection of other metal scrap to be reused later and the frying pan and spoon are set in the sink installed in the kitchen counter near to the now inactive hot plate. Heading back upstairs she begins grabbing what she needs for the day stopping at the end to carve a new tally mark into the wall next to the others already there to mark the passage of a new day.

Unlike the first few days of her time in the Villa where she barely had anything her home, a new building no longer located on the main square but instead in a remote part of the medical district is stocked with supplies that she has scavenged in the week plus time she has been there. Scavenged clothes and armor either hang from hangers in a wooden wardrobe she'd dragged from elsewhere in the Villa into her home even getting it up the stairs of her home. Inside two sets of the Villa security guard armors along with a much larger number of outfits are arranged with meticulous precision. Much like the clothes the number of weapons both intended and improvised has vastly increased. The automatic rifle lies in a state of disassembly atop a table along a wall where it had been left in that state after she had gotten too tired during her period of cleaning it late the previous night. Of course a revolver is located beneath her pillow as well but beyond that a number of other weapons are located. Of course the gleaming Cosmic knives are present of course and she has fashioned a spear with one for when guns are not an option, the spear stands propped against the wall near the stairs ready to be grabbed. But beyond that and a few other police pistols as well as a lone single barrel shotgun the less noticeable but more alarming additions lie stacked in a neat pile on a second table near the first one still filled with pieces of the disassembled rifle.

On the second table numerous explosives are arrayed. The largest number of these are crude powder charges, homemade explosives filled with gunpowder inside a tin can with a sensor affixed to the exterior to detect movement nearby and detonate the gunpowder inside. They are ineffectual compared to a genuine explosive such as the frag mine that much like the rifle lies in a state of disassembly with its guts strewn about in a seemingly chaotic but really a carefully controlled manner such that it can be reassembled with minimal difficulty.

Beyond all the weapons and clothing other items now fill the room. A stack of the casino chips lies stacked on the room's desk next to an inactive but powered computer that she had taken to writing down notes on her search of the Villa and for keeping her information she gathers regarding the treasure easily organized. There are other items of course. Prewar books and magazines, some technical in nature others purely of an entertainment value that she can read to pass the time if she wishes. And last but not least the last major notable addition to her bedroom/workshop is a trio of posters carefully hung from the walls. The first positioned on the wall above the stairs is a poster advertising the Sierra Madre Casino. The other two however are a pair of different posters each showing the same subject albiet in different appearances, Vera Keyes.

Since she had learned the pre-war Starlet's name Serenity's fixation with Vera had only been slowly growing as a procut of her lonliness. She hadn't broken down and began conversing with things that weren't there but in the idle portions of the day and in her dreams at night as a way of coping the pre-war starlet in all her beauty had begun to occupy Serenity's thoughts.

Still regardless of what the thoughts of a long dead woman might mean for Serenity's future sanity she was clearly still quite coherant given that the gaze of her piercing green eyes lingered on the posters for only the briefest of moments. Taking pistol, knife, spear, and powder charges she proceeded back down to the ground floor of her home and stepping outside and taking ginger steps through the minefield of carefully positioned explosives and beartraps she headed out into the villa for a morning of scavenging.

* * *

By the time her morning of scavenging came to an end around what she judged as noon Serenity had acquired a small and modest haul of supplies. Most of it was useless to her as of now and had been gathered with the intent of dismantling it for parts that could be of greater use in her endeavours. Mostly scrap metal and plastic she had a small amount of more valuable items and so she proceeded home. Lunch was a light affair much like the breakfast, once more cooked on the precious working hotplate located upstairs. She had water, miraculously produced from the working sink where she washed her dishes to clean them for future use and rehydrated for the second part of her day before she spent the second half of her day in her home. On other days she might proceed out to gather information but she'd swept large parts of the central Villa and wasn't yet ready to venture into the areas of the Villa where the presence of Ghost People was thicker. Remaining inside the house she spent the day carefully sorting through her new harvest of scavenge and figuring out what she had.

She made frequent use of the computer as she had started taking meticulous records of what she gathered and what she used it for. In her first few days she had come to realize the scarcity of supplies such that here in the Sierra Madre she could not afford to waste anything. So everything was categorized, everything was tallied. Whenever anything was dismantled a notation was made along with new entries created or updated as she accounted for the scavenged pieces of the cannibalized parts she had produced with her actions. She even spent an entire hour simply working with the sensors her explosives used. While she knew the distance they were deadly in and a rough estimate of their area such that they could be safely positioned, but there was a difference between casual knowledge and intimate knowledge. This was what she sought as she worked her way through her salvage. Last but not least of course she made fresh powder charges carefully extracting gunpowder from some of her precious ammunition. She had deployed two of the powder charges farther out from her base camp each in key spots where she had set up a trap, not for the Ghost People on whom no trickery seemed to work, but instead for any new arrivals. They like her would realize quickly how rare things were so she had carefully created caches that anyone could easily find but without knowledge of the trap she worked in any that sought to take her supplies would quickly die.

The hours passed away in silence with no sound of wind or Ghost People only the faint distant sounds of the static infested radios of the villa looping the sounds of the Sierra Madre Gala invitation as always on loop. In the end the day came to an end and she ate dinner but she didn't yet retire for the night instead electing to spend half an hour outside of the safety of her home in the central square sitting quietly on the ground off to the side, where she wouldn't immediately be spotted by another or by the local Ghost People, through it all her eyes steadily on Vera. She knew now that Vera had been an actress in the pre-war days as both of the posters featuring Vera were advertisements for different movies that she had famously starred in. One the name unreadable as the poster was incomplete to the point that the name was missing completely although Vera's name was quite clear and intact as was her appearance. Luckily the other declared the title to be 'Love Sets Sail' a movie that before she had seen the poster she had never even knew existed, still she had already made herself a promise that if at any point in her future that she had a chance to get a holotape containing the film she would acquire it regardless of the cost.

She wanted more of Vera than just the same words repeated on loop over and over. In fact the voice of the Gala invitation she didn't even know if it was Vera but her mind had made the jump and that had become Vera's voice when she saw her in her dreams at night. Still all good things had to come to an end and after what was close to a half hour though in truth she had no way to tell time but by her desire for sleep and how frequently she felt hungry. Heading back to the Medical District she made her way to her home once more passing by many degrading speakers on the way their sounds at worst a simple annoyance that she already was growing used to. Once more she repeated the process of placing her weapons in the same spots as before before stripping naked for the night and slipping into her bed as she pulled the blanket over her settling in at the end of another day to begin another day when she awoke once more beneath the ever present Cloud high above.


End file.
